Soumyajit Ghosh and Jaita Pushital of Central of Excellence, Kolkata, claimed the sub-junior boys and girls' titles respectively in the 66th National Sub-Junior and Inter-state Table Tennis championships in Chennai on Friday.
Sourav Saha of Petroleum Sports Control Board and Nikhat Banu of Andhra Pradesh won the cadet boys and girls' titles, beating Maharashtra's Sanmay Paranjpe 11-2, 8-11,11-5, 11-8, 11-3 and V Sneha of Tamil Nadu 11-4, 11-5, 5-11, 13-11, 11-7 respectively.
In the sub-junior boys' final, Ghosh, who graduated to the sub-junior boys' section, after winning the cadets final last year, excelled with his deep forehand smashes and defensive jabs to great effect in scoring a straight 4-0 win over Jenil Shah of Gujarat.
In fact, Jenil was lucky to have progressed to the final from the top half, mainly due to the fact that the top seeded Sushovan Das of COE, was debarred on 'over-age' grounds. Shah made lot of unforced errors before losing 8-11, 6-11, 9-11, 7-11.
On the other hand, the sub-junior girls' final turned to be a long drawn one as Pushital and Shreya Ghosh (both from COE) fought tooth and nail.
However, Pushital had the last laugh when she beat Ghosh 4-11, 11-4, 8-11, 12-10, 9-11, 11-8, 11-8.
